Development of dense collagenous construct mimicking native corneal stroma based on collagen compression process

摘要

This study describes the development of a dense collagen construct having complex biochemical components mimicking a native cornea as a scaffold for constructing an in vitro corneal stroma. The dense collagenous construct with the biochemical components was fabricated from the collagen compression process with addition of a corneal-derived decellularized extracellular matrix (dECM). The fabricated construct was verified that the biochemical components of the dECM reliably promoted to maintain the normal phenotype of the corneal keratocyte, with mechanical stability enough for manual handling during in vitro cell culture. The results indicated that the biomimetic collagenous construct would be a promising tool for construction of in vitro corneal tissue relevant to the native tissue as a basis material.